Death at Dawn
Page 14
Around midday, we moved on to poetry. To my astonishment, they’d never even heard of Shelley so I went straight upstairs to get the treasured volume from my bag and read to them.
I met a traveller from an antique land, Who said: Two vast and trunkless legs of stone Stand in the desert. Near them, on –
The door opened suddenly and Mrs Beedle walked in. She was wearing her usual black silk and widow’s cap and carrying an ebony walking cane. I stopped reading. She came over and looked at my book.
‘I don’t approve of Mr Shelley. If they must have poetry, Mr Pope is best. Mr Pope is sensible.’
‘I’m sorry, ma’am.’
It was no part of my plan to be dismissed on my first morning. She turned to the children. At least they did not seem scared of her.
‘Have they been good, then? Have they been quiet and obedient?’
Not the occasion either to discuss the educational theories of Jean Jacques Rousseau.
‘Yes, ma’am.’
‘You must keep them working hard. Henrietta, what’s fourteen minus seven plus nineteen?’
She fired questions at them for several minutes and, from the nod she gave me, seemed reasonably satisfied. Yet, now and again, I caught her looking at me in a considering way. Perhaps it was only to do with my suspect taste in poetry, because at the end of it she simply wished me good morning and went with as little fuss as she’d arrived.
Our dinner at half past two was shepherd’s pie and blancmange with bottled plums. In the afternoon I helped Henrietta and James cultivate their plots on the south side of the walled vegetable garden. Henrietta was wrapped in a brown cotton pinafore from neck to ankles to protect her dress. She said she hated gardening because it was dirty. Every time she saw a worm she screamed and one of the gardeners’ boys had to come running over to take it away. I liked the kitchen garden because it felt warm and secure inside its four high walls of rosy brick, with the vegetables growing in lush but orderly rows and the gardeners hoeing in between them in a slow rhythm that was probably much the same when Adam was a gardener.
When the stable clock struck five it was time to take the children back to the schoolroom for their bread and milk and have them washed and changed for their summons downstairs. This time there was no sign of Sir Herbert. Lady Mandeville was on her sofa, Mrs Beedle and Celia sitting by the window sewing. A tall, dark-haired young man was standing looking out of the window with his back to the room and his hands in his pockets. From his manner of being at home and my memory of him in Calais, I knew he must be Celia’s brother. I stopped a few steps inside the doorway and bent down to straighten James’s collar, giving myself time to think. There was no reason to fear Stephen Mandeville would recognise me. As far as I remembered, he hadn’t even glanced my way in the hotel foyer and it had been dark at our second near-meeting on the deck of the steam packet. The question was whether Celia had said anything to him about seeing me at Calais. I glanced towards her, hoping for some signal, but caught Lady Mandeville’s eye instead. She nodded at me to come over to her.
‘Miss Lock, may I introduce my son Stephen. Stephen, Miss Lock, our new governess.’
It was graceful in her, to introduce us properly. Her son’s response was equally graceful, a touch of the hand, a slight movement of the upper body that was an indication of a bow, though not as pronounced as it would have been to a lady. The dark eyes that met mine gave no indication that he remembered seeing me before. Celia glanced up from her sewing.
‘Miss Lock, do you sketch? Should you mind if I consulted you sometimes about my attempts?’
Her anxious eyes answered my question. She hadn’t told her brother. I should be delighted, I said. Soon after that they went in to dinner and we were free to escape to the nursery quarters.
The next day, Saturday, followed much the same pattern in the schoolroom. On Sunday we all went to church, the children travelling with their parents in the family carriage a mile across the park to the little Gothic church by the back gates, the rest of us walking in the sunshine. The family sat in their own screened pew up by the altar, at right angles to the rest of the congregation, so I had only a glimpse of Celia, solemn and dutiful in an oyster-coloured bonnet, and Sir Herbert looking stern, as if he were only there to make sure that God and the clergyman did their duty.
After church, once the family had driven away in the carriage, there was a rare chance for the servants to linger in the sun and gossip. I strolled among the gravestones and round the old yew trees, catching the occasional scrap of conversation. There were quite a few complaints about being worked too hard, not only the usual burden, but something more.
‘… all the bedrooms opened and cleaned, even the ones they haven’t used for years …’
‘… bringing waiters in from London, just for the weekend. Where they’re going to put them all …’
‘So I said I didn’t think it was very respectful having a ball, with the poor old king not even buried yet.’
‘Well, he will be by then, won’t he?’
‘I think they’re going to announce an engagement for Miss Celia.’
‘They’d never go to all that trouble, would they?’
I tried to hear more, but the women who were talking saw me and lowered their voices. I wandered away to look more closely at some of the gravestones. The oldest of them went back two hundred years or more and although they looked higgledy-piggledy, leaning at angles among the long grass and moon daisies, there was an order about them. Ordinary folk were on the outside, nearest the old stone wall that divided the churchyard from the grazing cattle, then upper servants at Mandeville Hall, still defined even in death by their service to the family, forty years a keeper, thirty years a faithful steward. Nearest the church, protected by a grove of yew trees, were the big table tombs of the Mandeville family themselves. I was reading the florid description of the virtues of the fifth baronet, as distinguished in his Piety and Familial Duty as in the high service of his Country, when I heard footsteps on the dry ground behind me.
‘He really was the worst villain of the lot of them,’ a man’s voice said over my shoulder. ‘Made a fortune selling bad meat to the army.’
I turned round and saw Stephen Mandeville standing there smiling in grey cutaway jacket and white stock with a plain gold pin, tall hat in hand. I dare say my mouth dropped open. I’d assumed he’d gone back in the carriage with the rest of the family. He came and stood beside me.
‘I’m sorry. Did I startle you?’
I tried to compose myself and answer him in the same light tone.
‘Not in the least. I suppose he had some good qualities.’
‘Not that I’ve heard of.’
The irreverence for the family surprised me, until I remembered that they weren’t his ancestors. He strolled on to the next tomb and in politeness I had to follow him.
‘The carving on this one is thought to be quite fine, if you have a taste for cherubim.’
To anyone watching – and I was quite sure that some of the servants would be watching – the son of the house was simply being polite and showing some of the family history to the new governess. I knew there was more to it than that.
‘I am glad that you’re here, Miss Lock. My sister needs a friend.’
He said it simply in a quiet voice, unlike his bantering tone when he’d been talking about the tombs. I glanced up at him.
‘I’m sure Miss Mandeville has many friends.’
‘Not as many as you might think. She leads a very quiet life here and we don’t visit much in the neighbourhood, owing to my mother’s health.’
‘If there’s anything I can do to help Miss Mandeville, naturally I will, but …’
‘There’ve been other governesses, of course, but they wouldn’t quite do. You seem to be around the same age as she is, if you’ll permit me to be personal, and I think she’s taken a liking to you already.’
‘Has she said so?’
From the lift of his eyebrow
I could see he hadn’t expected a direct question, but I wanted very much to know if they’d talked about me.
‘She doesn’t have to say it. I can read my sister like a book. So, you’ll be a friend to her?’
‘If I can, of course I will.’
‘Thank you. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I must go and join them.’
He smiled, gave a little nod and strode away.
I walked back across the park with Betty and her friend Sally, a cheerful and plump woman with flour from all that bread-making so deeply engrained in the creases of her knuckles that it had even survived a Sunday-best scrubbing. Naturally they wanted to know what Mr Stephen had been saying to me. Talking about the tombs, I said. Betty seemed worried.
‘I don’t blame you, Miss Lock, but he should be more careful.’
‘Careful of what?’
‘The governess and the son. It’s not my place to say it, but people do talk so.’
‘I assure you, it was nothing like that.’
I felt myself blushing and was on the verge of defending myself by telling them about his concern for his sister. Betty looked hurt by my sharpness and for some time the three of us walked in silence. I broke it by going back to the talk I’d overheard.
‘There’s to be a ball then?’
‘Two weeks on,’ Sally said. ‘A hundred people invited and a dinner the day before.’
I have reason to believe they will be holding a reception or a ball in the next few weeks … So Blackstone had been right. But how did he know and what in the world did it matter to him? He did not seem the kind of man to take a close interest in the social calendar.
‘Is it to celebrate anything in particular?’
‘Not that I know of.’
‘Don’t worry, Miss Lock,’ Betty said. ‘We shan’t have much to do with it, except keeping the children looking nice when they’re wanted.’
‘Her ladyship looks worn out with worry about it already,’ Sally said.
Betty gave her a look that said some things should not be discussed in front of new arrivals and turned the conversation to a bodice she was trimming for Sally. The rest of our walk back was taken up with details of cotton lace, tucks and smocking, leaving me with plenty of time to wonder why Miss Mandeville should be so much in need of a friend.
On Monday afternoon, Mrs Quivering intercepted me as I was bringing Henrietta and James in from the garden.
‘Miss Lock, a word with you.’
She beckoned a maid to see the children back upstairs and led me into her office.
‘A letter has arrived for you, Miss Lock.’
My heart leapt. The only person to whom I’d given my address was Daniel Suter.
‘Oh, excellent.’
I held out my hand, expecting to be given the letter, and received a frown instead.
‘Miss Lock, you should understand that if anybody has occasion to correspond with you, letters should be addressed care of the housekeeper and they will be passed on when the servants’ post is distributed. Is that quite clear?’
Since childhood, I’d never felt so humiliated. When she brought an envelope from under the ledger, I took it without looking at the writing on the envelope, thanked her and marched out.
At least dear Daniel had not failed me. It was sweet to have this link with my father so I carried it back upstairs to my attic room at last and turned the envelope over, expecting to see Daniel’s fine Italic hand. It was like running into a thorn hedge where you’d expected lilacs – not Daniel’s hand after all but the upright, spiky characters of Mr Blackstone.
Miss Lock,
Livery bills will be paid for the mare Esperance at the Silver Horseshoe until further notice. Please let me know of your safe arrival as soon as is convenient.
That was all; no greeting, no signature. When I read it a second time I saw that it contained a small threat. I had not told him the mare’s name. He’d discovered that for himself and used it, I guessed, quite deliberately to show I could hide nothing from him. Well, I was being a good, obedient spy. In my first few days I’d found out something he wanted to know and had even seized a chance of getting it to him with the help of the daughter of the house.
As for Celia, I’d by no means made up my mind about her. Our talk kept coming back to my mind and sometimes I managed to convince myself that she was nothing more than a spoiled young lady with a lively sense of drama. Then I’d remember the tone of her voice saying she might be in danger and at least half believe it. In any event, we had her brother’s approval of our friendship, though whether that would continue if he knew she wanted me to carry secret letters was another matter.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
Celia paid a visit to the schoolroom just before the end of our morning session. The surprise on the faces of her half brothers and sister showed that this was not a usual event.
‘Miss Lock, may I steal you, please?’
As it was so close to their dinner time I told the children they could put their books away and joined her in the corridor. She was wearing a morning gown of cream mousseline, with a pale apricot sash.
‘It was so obliging of you to offer to help with my sketching. It’s driving me quite distracted.’
I realised that she’d said it loudly for the benefit of Betty, who’d come hurrying out of her room to see who the intruder was.
‘I can’t claim to be an expert,’ I said.
‘You’re being modest, I’m sure. I’m working on something that simply won’t come right. Would you come and give me your opinion?’
‘Now?’
‘Why not? Betty can see to the children, can’t you, Betty?’
I followed her along the corridor and down the stairs to the first floor, where the family had their rooms. The pale green carpet was soft as moss underfoot, the doors deeply recessed into carved and gilded frames. Celia opened a door into a sunny room with a blue canopied bed, blue velvet window curtains, two chairs and a sofa upholstered to match. It was pleasantly untidy, a white dress thrown over one of the chairs, a novel upside down on the sofa, and a canary singing in an ornate Turkish-style cage by the window, seed scattered all round it on the carpet. A half-open doorway showed a dressing room with a screen and a full-length mirror.
‘Where’s your sketch?’ I said, humouring her.
‘Don’t worry, it’s quite safe to talk. I’ve sent Fanny down to the laundry to find my pleated silk collar. It will take her a long time because it’s at the bottom of my drawer in there. My letter’s ready.’
She brought it over to me from her desk. It was plump and scented, addressed to Philip Medlar Esq at an address in Surrey. She dropped a smaller packet on to my lap.
‘There’s some money in there for you to give whoever takes it to the post. I’ve tried to think of everything, you see.’
She was anxious to please me. Perhaps she’d caught the look on my face when she gave me the letter. The smell and feel of it had convinced me that it was nothing more than a love letter after all and she’d not been truthful with me. Still, it suited my plans and I wasn’t being wholly truthful with her.
‘How soon can you take it? Tomorrow?’
‘Yes. If I leave at first light, I can be back by the time the children have to be got up.’
She knelt on the carpet and took my hand between both of hers.
‘Oh, I am so very grateful. I do believe you’ve saved my life.’
‘Not quite as dramatic as that, surely.’
‘Oh, you can’t know.’
I said, as gently as I could manage, ‘Are you so very scared of your stepfather?’
‘I am scared of him, yes, but that isn’t the worst of it. Miss Lock … Oh, I can’t go on “miss”-ing you. What’s your name?’
‘Lib—, Elizabeth.’
‘Elizabeth, there are things I mustn’t tell you. But do believe that I might be in the most terrible danger of being put in prison or … or killed even, for something that isn’t my fault at all.’
‘I’d better go back to the children.’
‘How shall I know you’ve sent it?’ she said.
‘That bench we sat on, in the flower garden – if I’m back safely, I’ll pick a flower and leave it there.’
‘Yes. I mustn’t be seen talking with you too much, specially now Stephen’s back. He notices more than Mama.’
‘Where has your brother been?’
‘He stays in London, mostly. He’s studying to be a lawyer.’
I wondered whether to tell her about my conversation with Stephen. It would have reassured her, of course, but I was still annoyed by her dramatics.
Or perhaps I was falling into the spy’s habit of secrecy.